


In All The Old Familiar Places

by Razzaroo



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-25 21:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18583210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razzaroo/pseuds/Razzaroo
Summary: In September 1939, Ronan Lynch loses the illusion that the world can’t touch him when the radio broadcast announces a declaration of war. In November 1940, Adam Parrish loses the only home he’s ever had. In 1941, they find each other. It’s a start.





	1. 1939

**Author's Note:**

> A big shout out to kieranfae on tumblr for being a very patient beta. You were invaluable :)

Looking forward, Ronan knew he was going to have to answer the question, ‘ _What were you doing when the war started?’_ and he’ll have to answer, ‘ _I was watching my father.’_

The Barns was never somewhere that news landed softly, or with grace; it always arrived with a bang, a roll of thunder, the sound of breaking glass. If it had no impact, Niall Lynch would say, then it’s not news and the Lynches were a family who knew about impacts: a father whose ears rattled with artillery fire; a mother whose expressions could stop an army; three sons brought up fighting.

 ‘ _I am speaking to you from the cabinet room of 10 Downing Street…’_

Ronan watched as Niall’s attention snapped to the wireless that squatted on the kitchen worktop, little gateway to the world beyond the Barns, a voice coming from somewhere far beyond the Cumbrian mountains, bouncing off of the rocks of Scafell Pike to echo across the county. He gestured for Aurora to turn the volume up, to magnify the quiet reserved voice of Neville Chamberlain as he talked about Germans and ambassadors and undertakings in Poland; a quick glance at Declan, sat opposite their father and the very mirror of him, showed his attention was also fixed on the radio.

‘… _no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently, this country is at war with Germany.’_

“Well,” Niall said, and he ran one hand through his greying hair, “That’s that.”

Ronan stashed that comment in the back of his brain, to hold on to for the future, because it was a rare thing for Niall Lynch to have so little to say. For the first time that Ronan can remember, the attention of both of his parents was turned to his older brother, Aurora abandoning her washing to rest both hands on Declan’s shoulders, soapy water soaking into the fabric of his shirt.

“You’ll be volunteering,” Niall said, standing, “I won’t have people saying the Irish family isn’t doing enough.”

Declan nodded, slow and deliberate, tolerant of his mother’s unexpected fussing, “What about Ronan?”

“We have a year to worry about that.” Niall’s mouth twisted into a smile, or something close to it, “This might even blow over by Christmas.”

He stood and his chair clattered to the floor. Ronan followed him out of the house, sparing only a glance to his mother, her arms wound around her eldest son. Niall headed for the outer orchards; really, an empty meadow with a clump of apple trees, barely worthy of the name. Ronan tracked him across the fields, past fields of lowing cattle, before his father finally stopped in front of the tree that had always provided his sons sanctuary.

“We’ll need new fence posts,” Niall said, kicking one already in place, “Before winter comes. And replace the ones for the lower field.” He rubbed his hand over his face, “I’m gonna have to find someone who can push and pull like Declan does, to keep on top of everything.”

“You’re really going to make him join the army?”

“Not my choice, Ronan. Not his either. Volunteering rather than letting the draft come is…” Niall’s smile was wry, “Well, it’s one thing if a man’s sons leave him; it’s another thing entirely if they’re taken.”

 

* * *

 

“Will you miss it?” Ronan asked, finally managing to pin Declan down on his own when the sky was dark, “Here, I mean.”

He’d pushed himself into the box room that Declan called his own, crowded now that the two of them were much taller and, in Declan’s case, broader than they had been when Niall had set it up as his eldest son’s bedroom. Declan struck a match to light his cigarette, stolen from their father’s tin, the window opened so he could let the smoke out.

“Would you?” he said eventually, the burning orange tip of the cigarette drawing Ronan’s attention. He wondered if Niall knew Declan lifted his tobacco, “Miss this place, if you got the chance to leave?”

“Yes. This is home.”

Declan gave him a look that Ronan hadn’t been able to read for years. Ronan felt his temper flare.

“Seriously?” he said, “You would rather be in mud trenches, artillery fire and poison gas than here?” He groped his memory for something more, “You’d rather be dead in France than living and breathing _here_?”

Declan raised an eyebrow, “I count at least three things in that sentence that I never said, Ronan.”

Ronan scowled and looked up at the stars outside the window. He couldn’t remember when he and his brother had started to drift apart; he knew that if he’d asked his mother, Aurora would say something vague about Declan’s age and ‘ _your time’s coming too Ronan.’_ Asking his father would only yield a snort and a comment about how Declan had been born too serious for his own family.

Still, both of them had heads full of their father’s Great War stories. Rift or no rift, the idea of one of his brothers in the midst of his father’s nightmares was enough to make Ronan itch for something he can’t name. He didn’t feel like he was living in a country going to war. He reached under the bed to knock aside the loose floorboard, pulled out the bottle of whisky that he knew Declan kept under there; liquid courage, Matthew called it, as if Declan was someone who lacked confidence. He ignored his brother’s huff.

“You’re terrible at secrets,” Ronan said, waiting as his brother leant to retrieve glasses, “You know that, right?”

Declan’s smile was a dark, half hidden thing, “You don’t know shit about secrets.”

 

* * *

 

The time came when the war became real. Ronan stood at his father’s elbow, Matthew on his other side, and he watched. He watched as Niall filled out the papers declaring who was in his house, how many sons he had left to give. He watched as Aurora fussed over Declan, the centre of his parents’ world for the first time since Ronan had been born; he watched as Declan bore it all with a patience he never showed Ronan or Niall. Aurora’s privilege, Ronan thought, to treat them as if they were in perpetual childhood, her chicks never fully fledged or learning to fly.

Finally, he watched as Declan left the Barns and the world they’d grown up in, left it behind for Aglionby airbase with barely a look back. The words ‘ _your time’s coming too Ronan’_ rattled between Ronan’s ears and left his father’s side, left his chores and took himself into the fields, into the woods. Niall let him go without a word and the world shifted on the axis of Niall’s silence; he had never been a quiet father.

He stopped by those spreading apple trees. Ronan disregarded Niall’s fence boundary, marked out with wire, to hunch under the shade of the largest. He wanted to be alone; he wanted to have Declan with him, if only because Declan being there would mean nothing had changed. He looked up at the sky, clear and empty of planes, last refuge of peace and endlessly endlessly blue.


	2. 1940

The world had changed and Adam woke every morning guiltily kicking down a feeling of gratitude that it had. It was wrong, he thought, to be glad of a war but he couldn’t cut out the part of him that was, however twisted, happy for that announcement in September 1939. It took Robert Parrish away from him; it took his mother into the world of work, into munitions factories and away from henpecking her son in the absence of her husband. It gave Adam a few precious hours to focus on schoolwork, on leaving school at eighteen instead of fourteen.

He hated to be grateful for a war; he hated even more that his father had ever given him reason to be in the first place.

“Dodging the draft, Adam?” his neighbour asked in the cool November morning, “Thought they’d have snapped you up by now. Smart thing like you, they can probably use a good brain.”

“I think my mother pulled some strings,” Adam said, “With my father gone, I think it might have been their heartstrings. Leaving a woman alone and all that.”

“Home Guard, then.” The neighbour looked up at him, greying hair falling into her face. Adam nodded, “There’s a good boy. Take care of your Mum. Do your bit for the country.” Her smile was a warm thing and Adam wondered how much she knew about what really went on behind his family’s closed door, “Bet your dad will be back for leave soon.” She caught sight of his downcast expression and patted his cheek, stubby-fingered hand gentle on his jaw, “Chin up, lad. Wars don’t last forever.”

“It’s just strange.”

“As someone who made it through the last one, my boy, let me settle those nerves on your face: we lived through one, we can live through another. Makes no difference to us.” She gestured to the terrace they shared, “What difference do rations make here? What difference does women workin’ make here?” She tweaked his ear, and Adam let her, “Everythin’ _they_ whinge about has always been the way it is here.”

“Adam!”

His mother’s voice cut like a knife and Adam pushed down a wince. He straightened his back, lifted his chin, as his neighbour patted his shoulder. _Chin up, lad._ He’d survived his father; he could live through his mother. He clutched his books, borrowed from the library, to his chest like a shield as he approached his mother, sallow and stern on the stone step. As he came closer, she held one hand out.

“Come on, Adam,” she said, “You want to be the man of the house; that means contributing.”

Adam dug in his pocket to produce what he’d been paid earlier that day: a handful of money for a whole morning of his time, spent putting a Rolls Royce back to rights for a family that had never once struggled to put food on the table. His mother counted it out on her palm and fixed him with a look halfway to accusatory.

“It’s all they gave me,” he said, already on his way to wilting. He swallowed, “I wouldn’t hold out on you, Mum. Not now.”

His mother considered him. She looked as dusty as he felt, with the same odd shade of blond hair, the same tired eyes. For a moment, it was with a scrutiny that Adam had always associated with his father and he was prepared to wince; it broke when he blinked, and she finally smiled, an expression just as exhausted as the rest of her but more frequent to show with her husband gone.

“You’re not all bad,” she said, moving to tousle his hair and he managed to resist a flinch away from the hand headed towards his face, “Inside, now. You know what to do if anything happens.”

 She dropped the money into the tin they kept, a stash for emergencies, before she took her coat off the peg in the hall.

“There’s a pie for dinner,” she said, “Get it in the oven, so I at least know you’ve eaten something.” Very lightly, she brushed a hand against his cheek, as if cautious of touching him even with her gloves on, “I’m in the factory late tonight, so I won’t see you until the morning.”

Adam didn’t bother trying to tell her that he never sought trouble. He only watched her go, walking to one job before the government dragged her to another at night, unable to afford letting one go. He looked down at the library books in his arms and the idea of studying for university suddenly felt ludicrous. He set them down on the hallway table, next to their jar of wages and dreams, before he slipped into the narrow house and locked the door behind him. He should know better, by now, than to dream his way out of Coventry, an unbridgeable gap between himself and his fears and every dream he’d harboured since he’d heard the suggestion of a world beyond what his parents knew.

 

* * *

 

That night, the moon seemed almost too bright. Adam closed the curtains to it, blacking out the light from his lamp, and sat huddled at the end of the settee with his books and his notes. He kept the wireless close for noise, for news, for anything to keep him awake and updated. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked and left him uneasy, as if it was counting down to something.

He didn’t see what time it was when the sirens began.

It took only a moment for the droning sound to register before Adam scrambled to his feet, books discarded, the radio abandoned to sing to nobody, Vera Lynn crooning about meeting again into an empty living room. He barely had time to drag on a pair of boots before the first bombs fell, the air swishing around them. Opening the front door, the first thing Adam saw was a neighbour across the road lifting an incendiary into a bucket of water with a long spade. Adam could hear more of them falling, smell smoke where they ignited.

‘ _Shelters,’_ he thought, because the streets were empty and he knew that several of his neighbours had no shelter of their own, ‘ _People need to get to get to shelters.’_

“Adam!” His neighbour rattled onto the pavement, looped her arm through his, “Help me down the shelter; it’s hard to see with no lamps.”

It was his neighbour who tugged Adam along the road, despite her insistence that the blackout made it impossible to see. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, ignoring the flames springing up around them, focussing on the shelter to block out the dread that curdled with every roar of an engine overhead.

He was, he thought, unworthy of adulthood when he could not master his fear.

“Stay here,” his neighbour said when he turned to go back into the streets, “Unless you have a plane stashed under your bed, you’ll be no help out there.” She had him sit next to her, not commenting how he kept himself turned towards the door, “We’ll clean up tomorrow.”

She held on to his arm as the hours ticked on, dozed against his shoulder as the air outside rumbled and shook, sending showers of plaster dust cascading down on the people huddled in the shelter. Adam drifted in and out of sleep as the night went by; the thin fog of his dreams was broken up by the rumbling from the sky, the pounding of bombs falling, his father’s voice shouting words he can’t make out as he hides under the bed…

Eventually, it was the quiet that woke him. Adam lifted his head, a crick in his neck from how he’d slumped in his sleep, and blinked the last remains of the night from his eyes. There was no sound outside the shelter: no roar of engines; no burst of bomb fire; no all clear sirens. He stood, plaster dust falling from the creases of his clothes, and cautiously moved to open the shelter to the world outside.

The streets looked like they had been dissolved. What had once been familiar had crumpled into rubble; in the back of his head, Adam heard an echo of his younger self, smaller and more self-contained, holding his mother’s dress and asking her what Rome had looked like when it had fallen. He remembered picturing it as a city of toothpicks, the Coliseum collapsing like the houses of cards he’d watched his father build when he was supposed to be asleep; he’d imagined the Italians picking up all those little toothpicks and building their city back up, piece by piece; in his child’s mind, the Coliseum was missing pieces because they simply hadn’t finished building it yet.

Looking out at his own city of toothpicks, Adam finally understood how rebuilding could take a millennia.

He took his first steps into the street alone, treading lightly as he imagined deer would, afraid that the ground would collapse beneath him and send him tumbling down into the boiling core of the earth. He worried that his weight would turn the toothpicks to splinters.

‘ _Where do I go?’_ he thought, and his brain felt numb, ‘ _Where do I start?’_

Behind him, he could more people emerging out into the ruined morning. He took one step, and then two and then three, his feet carrying him along by habit. He picked his way through the streets and he thought ‘ _Where is my mother?’_ and ‘ _What is my father going to say?’_ In the distance, he could hear wailing.

The street he lived on was half gone. Some of the terrace houses were still standing, blackened by fire; where the adjoining houses had collapsed, Adam could see a family’s life possessions laid bare. His own home was a pile of brick and dust, any trace of his threadbare life turned to ash by the German planes. Adam felt his breath catch somewhere under his sternum and carefully picked his way through the pile, looking for some trace of normality; he ignored the pain in his fingers were they scraped on harsh edges, ignored the ominous thrum of warning that there could anything under the rubble.

There was no sign of his mother.

He gave up when his digging only turned up splintered furniture, burnt at the edges and covered in plaster dust. He stood vigil outside of the crumbling ruins of his home, conscious of the fact that he was the only young man who hadn’t yet left the city behind. He’d wait a while longer, find out what has happened to his mother, what will happen to his neighbours but with no home, he knew there was no future left for him here. His stomach turned at the thought of his father’s next leave, at what Robert Parrish would say and do at the sight of his house in ruins.

“I can’t stay here,” he said when his neighbour came close to him, hand already reaching for his shoulder. Overhead, another plane passed over, this one recognisably British, stark and lonely against the morning sky, taking in the damage, too late to be any use.

“No, pet,” his neighbour said and she sounded numb, all too calm, “Where will you go?”

Adam tracked the progress of the plane in the sky and wanted to choke on fear at the thought being in one, so high off the ground that everything looked like a child’s plaything. He could hear the Home Guard coming now, slow chug of engines as the authorities started to make their way into the city.

“To meet them,” he said, tilting his chin up at the sky, “I’ll go up there.”


	3. 1941

“Lynch.”

A hand landed on Ronan’s shoulder, nails pressing hard into the fabric of his uniform, slightly browner than Ronan remembered it; it was, as Matthew would say, like a memory of the colour brown. He shrugged it off and hoisted his shoulder bag higher.

“Gansey,” he said, “Did you even bother going home?”

 “Of course,” he said, grinning, and he brandished a battered leather journal, “I had to get this.” He paused, “And see Jane.”

Ronan didn’t know who Jane was, only that she was a name Gansey carried around in his pocket, in his wallet, held out like a warning when women made eyes at him. Ronan half-wished he had a reminder of home half as subtle as the name “ _Jane.”_ Instead, he had Declan, the glowing star of Aglionby’s fighter pilots, a constant itch that made it almost irresistible to disobey orders.

“He’s not here,” Gansey said, “So you can get that look off your face. Declan has better things to do than meet you at the train station.”

“Now, but he won’t have better things to do in the mess hall, or better things to do when he’s not up there.” Ronan jabbed a finger at the sky, “We’re just better apart.”

Gansey made a sound in the back of his throat but his expression didn’t change. He kept turning the journal over in his hands as they walked, thumbing through the soft-edged pages. Ronan nodded towards it.

“What’s so important about that? You went all the way to Wales for it.”

“It’s just good to have,” Gansey said, and the journal fell open to a page covered by his handwriting, “A reminder of what I was doing before.”

Ronan had already tuned him out, a new target drawing his attention as they approach the mess. Kavinsky lingered near the doorway, looking effortlessly nonchalant, his sunglasses plastered to his face despite the overcast sky.

“Lynch,” Kavinsky said as they passed. Ronan felt Gansey’s elbow inches from his ribs, waiting to dig in.

“Don’t,” Gansey said, and it only made Kavinsky’s grin more wicked. He’d learnt that prodding Ronan stopped getting results the moment he’d lost Ronan’s attention and interest.

Prodding Gansey, though, was another story.

“There’s Dick,” he said, dragging those two syllables into a drawl. He got a hold on Gansey’s shoulder, pulled him back, cornering him against the wall. Something lurched in Ronan’s stomach and he couldn’t tell if it was jealousy or something closer to worry, “Didn’t know you were bringing a girlfriend back to base.”

Gansey’s warning look was enough to keep Ronan from biting, from rising to Kavinsky’s constant challenge of seeing whose teeth were longer. He rocked back on his heels and watched as Gansey’s whole demeanour changed with a tilt of his head, lifting his chin, hard as diamonds.

“Step back, Kavinsky,” he said, and his tone was commanding, clear indicator that he was preparing to pull rank if he had to, “I have better things to do than play with you.”

“Oh, I bet,” Kavinsky said, his gaze sliding to Ronan, his grin wicked and salacious, “Especially now you have your pet back.”

It was a predictable jibe, so easier to ignore. He’d spent half his time in training trying to build armour against Kavinsky’s jabs and pokes, taking time to become skilled enough that pretending indifference is eventually enough to make it real. He missed what Gansey said next.

But he didn’t miss Kavinsky spitting in Gansey’s face.

And his fist didn’t miss Kavinsky’s cheek.

The pair of them landed hard, Kavinsky yanking Ronan down, twisting painfully at his wrist. Whatever finesse Ronan had gotten used to over his years of brawling with his brothers wasn’t present here; everything between him and Kavinsky was teeth and claws, dark and secret things, endless cycle of hows and whys and “ _because I **want** to.” _His knuckles bruised and he realised he didn’t want Kavinsky to spoil Gansey for him.

He was yanked backward by a hand on his collar, another one twisting his arm behind his back. There was a crunch as the back of his head made contact and the hands let go of him; somewhere behind him, he could hear Declan swearing. Whatever injury he’d inflicted, it wasn’t enough to convince Declan to give up; the moment he attempted another swing, Declan caught him and the wind was knocked out of him as he ended up against the wall.

“What the fuck?!” he snarled, “Who asked you to get in my damn business?”

For the first time in his life, Ronan found himself second in his older brother’s attention. Instead, Declan was focussed on Kavinsky, who was picking himself up off the ground; at the very least, the pair of them had bloody noses to match.

“Clear off,” Declan said, and, in another first, Kavinsky listened, apparently intending to lick his wounded pride. Once he was gone, Declan turned his attention to Ronan, “Start explaining.”

“It was nothing,” Gansey said, already stepping in, damage control at the ready, “Really, it’s fine.”

“It’s not nothing and it’s not fine,” Ronan snapped, “He spat at you!”

Gansey only blinked at him, as if struck off guard by Ronan’s loyalty; Declan sighed and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, a delayed attempt to stem the bleeding from his nose. Already, the starched collar of his shirt was stained red.

“A moment, Gansey,” he said, “Ronan and I need to have words.”

“It won’t happen again,” Gansey said, “We need to—”

“No, it won’t. A moment.”

Gansey gave up too easily for Ronan’s liking, bowing to Declan’s higher rank; easier to let him clean it up than argue, than to let it get the attention of someone even higher up. The look he gave Ronan was sympathetic.

“I know you think you’re above rules,” Declan said when Gansey was gone, folding the bloodied handkerchief back into his pocket, “But you can’t just start fights like that; there are people who would do much worse to Gansey than spit in his face.” There was a pause and then, “You need to stay away from Joseph Kavinsky.”

“Is this a two way conversation we’re having or am I just supposed to stand here and listen to you talk at me?”

“Considering where we are, I can easily make it the latter, _Sergeant.”_

“Fine, _Pilot Officer_ Lynch. Tell me why you want me away from Kavinsky.”

“Because I’m hearing things. He attracts trouble.” Declan’s look is accusatory, and Ronan felt his glare like something physical, jab against his breastbone, “You cause enough trouble on your own. I can’t, I _won’t,_ keep cleaning up after you.”

“I never asked you to,” Ronan said. He snapped a salute, respectful to an outsider, full of mockery clear to anyone who knew the Lynch brothers, “But I’ll keep it in mind, _sir.”_

He turned on his heel and stalked into the mess, bristling like an angry cat. It was the way of Declan, to get somewhere under Ronan’s skin. _Hearing things._ The ambiguity was unsettling. He wished that Declan could just give a straight answer.

His mood didn’t brighten when he caught sight of Gansey, damned traitor, with the other two members of his crew at his left hand; there was Adam, fine boned and doe eyed, the one whose voice Ronan knew was going to haunt his dreams rattling off coordinates into his lonely radio; on the end was Noah, pale as a ghost, rear gunner for the Pig, who had a tendency to fade in and out of life as it suited him. Adam looked him up and down, taking in his dishevelled clothes, how he held the wrist that Kavinsky had twisted.

“How much damage?” Gansey asked and Ronan scowled.

“How many strips?” Noah chimed in. He saw Ronan’s expression and his grin turned feral, “Of skin did he take off your back?”

Ronan scoffed, “As if Declan would. It’s easier for him to play politics than to try any kind of meaningful punishment.” He nudged Adam’s shoulder, pointed to the puzzle game he’d been working over, “I’ve had that since I was nine. Still haven’t figured it out.”

“That’s because you don’t know how things fit together.” Adam held out the two pieces. His hands had always looked like they didn’t belong to him, wrong fit for someone who said he’d been a mechanic, “Pay more attention, Lynch.”

Kavinsky and Declan were quickly shoved to the back of Ronan’s mind now that he had Adam’s attention. Being around Adam was the only time that Ronan consciously had a rein on himself, on his actions, his running tongue; Ronan still had secrets he wanted to keep, and those secrets demanded that he be cautious around Adam Parrish.

“We’re in the Pig tonight,” Gansey said, butting in as Adam surrendered the two pieces to Noah, who immediately set to trying to put them back together again, “So don’t get into any more fights. I can’t be without a navigator.”

“Train Parrish to read a map.”

Adam grimaced, “I’d rather not. Don’t really like the idea of seeing all that space between me and the ground.”

“If you don’t like heights, why the fuck did you join the air force?”

Adam looked to Gansey, his face a picture of tiredness because of course Ronan had asked the same question before, because he’d heard it countless times he’d come out of training with a clear dislike of being in the air. It was Noah who broke the silence, with a triumphant laugh.

“Excelsior!” he said, grinning at Gansey, holding up the two pieces, joined back together as one.


	4. 1942

There was very little, Adam found, that soured Ronan’s mood more than having to be in close proximity to his older brother; even being in the mess hall at the same time made the atmosphere as sour as curdled milk, despite any and all of Gansey’s attempts at diplomacy. It was a remarkable piece of foresight that the two of them had been placed under separate commands, but having them coordinate on the same operations was risking that delicate balance. It was gambling on the idea that Ronan’s respect and affection for Gansey outweighed his deep-seated spiritual need to disobey Declan at every turn. Adam was always on the edge of asking what had made them so poisonous to each other, his existence as an only child making him ignorant of how sibling fights could spiral but, with the spectre of Robert Parrish looming large over his own family history, he kept his mouth shut. Some things, he felt, should only be the business of the people who carried them.

So instead, he let Ronan indulge in a new vice at his side, plumes of silvery smoke somehow managing to look exactly as moody as Ronan did.

“That’s a bad habit,” Adam said. Ronan’s smile curled wickedly.

“I’m made of bad habits,” he said, all bravado. “Besides, I’m not the only one. I’ve seen you nail biting.” His look was pointed, “You should take better care of your hands.”

Adam crosses his arms across his front, tucking his hands away as if cold. It was, he thought, none of Ronan’s business what he did with his hands. They were made to be practical, not pretty; to pull things apart and together again, to claw himself to be more than he was. Ronan couldn’t figure into that; Adam would cut his hands up trying to hold on.

He was thankfully spared from answering by a bell sounding the hour, signalling that they should move to prepare for the night. Ronan took one last drag from the cigarette before dropping it to the ground in blatant violation of rules, grinding it down with his foot.

“Old killjoy,” he muttered, but even his dark mood couldn’t compete with the idea of flying; he brightened looking at the sky. “At least I don’t have to listen to him.”

“I’ve had to listen to worse,” Adam said, because he was certain there was nothing that Declan Lynch could say to him that could be worse than anything he’d heard from his father. “I don’t understand how you can like it so much.”

"High chance of heroics? Higher chance of death?" Ronan's grin was bayonet sharp. "What's not to love?”

It would be a simple operation: cross the Channel with Fighter Command, bait the Germans into a fight, survive the night and make it home. With luck, there’d be enough fighters to keep the Germans off of the Pig’s back. Adam would be a lot more willing to accept his inevitable, heroic death if it was in any other plane than one named after a farm animal.

Ronan peeled away in an effort to avoid Declan, opting to take the longer route to the air field. Noah appeared in his place, stepping out of the evening air and into existence at Adam’s elbow; the energy rolling off of him put Adam in mind of radio static.

“What kind of a difference,” Noah asked hesitantly, “are we making? Doing this?”

Adam rolled his shoulders, his flying gear too warm on the ground. “Saves waiting for them to come to us. And gives them less time to plot an invasion.”

Noah frowned. “I just don’t want to die doing something pointless.” He nodded towards Gansey, already waiting for them by the Pig. “I don’t want any of us to.”

Officially, the Pig was a Handley Page Hampden; the nickname came about, according to Gansey, because his father had always said pigs would fly before Gansey took himself away from his studies to follow the family military tradition. Pig was appropriate, considering how it stubbornly refused to die, though Noah called it a suitcase and had joked that he’d use it to take his belongings back home when the war was over.

“You won’t,” Adam said, stopping to let Ronan up first. “None of us will.”

“I can’t tell if you’re saying we won’t die or if you’re saying our deaths won’t be pointless.”

“Have a bit of faith, Noah,” Gansey said, bringing up the rear, signalling to Declan they were ready. “Of course he means _both.”_

 

* * *

 

When things were quiet, Adam got nervous. Quietness had always set him in a constant state of anticipation, of waiting; quiet never lasted long and was always followed by trouble. It was a lesson hard learnt at home, even before the war. He stayed huddled by the wireless system, watching the blackness through the gunner turret; all around him was the sound of engines, both the Pig’s and the fighter escort, interrupted only by the crackle of his headset. One ear rumbled with tinnitus, reminder of an old injury courtesy of his father. It all kept the quietness from being a literal silence, but it did nothing to keep the wary feeling from gnawing at his gut.

‘ _It will be fine,’_ he thought, because Gansey’s crew was always fine, always unscathed. It was half of why Gansey was ribbed on so much by the others. He turned to watch Gansey, what little he could see of him, ‘ _Safe as…’_

“Here they come,” Ronan said, and his voice sounded faded through the headset. “Be ready.”

There was one split second, only a moment of breathing, before the guns broke out around them. Adam turned most of his attention to the turret, the wireless fading to background noise, huddling down into his jacket. The world outside was dark, broken by bursts of gunfire and clouds of flame from the bomb drops. He gripped the gun in front of him and watched as searchlights sprouted out of the night. He was still undecided if it was a mercy that he couldn’t see their faces.

The night drew to a close slowly. When the signal came to return home, Adam held his breath.

And then the Pig was hit.

First, the plane lurched, rocking like a ship at sea. Before Adam could speak, the Pig plunged, dipping forward, and the breath was crushed out of his lungs as he was knocked askew. He gripped the gun for balance and twisted towards Gansey.

“Gansey! Where are we hit?”

Gansey offered no reply. He only glanced over his shoulder at Adam, checking to see the extent of any injury; he was white as a sheet.

Adam slithered back down as the Pig levelled out again, moving so that he was boxed in next to the radio sets again, “Where, Gansey?”

“Ronan.”

It was then that they heard banging coming from beneath the pilot seat, fists against the hatch. Gansey’s mouth was a hard line.

“Wireless,” he said, raising his voice over the rumble of an approaching engine, “Now.”

Adam pulled his headset back on as Gansey cranked the seat back. The space was so limited that Adam could hear Gansey knocking against the walls of the Pig, moving to allow Ronan to crawl up out of his observer’s compartment. Looking back to Ronan, all Adam could see was blood, splattered across his face, already oozing through his flying gear. He was crammed against the back of the pilot’s seat, one shaking hand pulling at the first aid kit on the wall. The whole plane seemed to fill with the smell of iron.

“ _Parrish! Sergeant Parrish!”_

That was Declan’s voice, rattling between Adam’s ears before it finally registered. He tore his gaze away from Ronan, resting his forehead against the dials in front of him.

“We’re hit,” he said, wincing as Ronan swore. “One wounded.”

For one, brief moment, Declan was quiet. When he spoke again, his voice was level and controlled; pitch perfect for a star pilot of Fighter Command.

“ _Get him home,”_ he said, and Adam didn’t know how to reassure someone like Declan, solid unreal Declan, a man who’d stepped out whole and adult from a painted propaganda poster.

So instead, he said nothing. He could hear Ronan behind him, those heavy pained breaths, and he wanted desperately to block them out.

“Parrish,” Ronan croaked, “C’mere.”

He was curled over, one hand pressed below his right knee to try and staunch his bleeding; the other, he extended to Adam, his glove dark and wet. The first aid kit was open beside him and one bandage was already unravelled, the end of it dotted with bloody prints. At a nod from Gansey, Adam left his post at the radios, inching towards Ronan. The interior of the Pig was so narrow, the three of them were almost on top of each other. In the dim light of the lamp, Adam could see the wounds on his face as well. Ronan caught his wrist when he moved to pick off some glass.

“No,” he said, “I need you to tie this for me.”

He pressed the bandage into Adam’s hand and gritted his teeth as Adam looped it around his thigh, pulling the makeshift tourniquet as tight as possible. Adam couldn’t see what difference it could make, considering how thick their flying gear was. Ronan’s hand stayed curled around his wrist as he tied the tourniquet off.

“Lynch, I can’t just stay here,” he said. He pointed back over his shoulder. “I have a job to do to get us home.”

Ronan offered little resistance. He let Adam go, bloodied glove leaving smears on Adam’s sleeve. Adam managed to position himself so that he could watch Ronan as well as the wireless.

“I’ll make them fucking sorry,” Ronan said, and the heat in his voice was a sharp contrast to how terrible he really looked. “Get them in _both_ legs, Parrish. You watch.”

Gansey looked over his shoulder to meet Adam’s eyes, sharing a look of unspoken doubt. As the Pig dipped again, there was a sense that the night spelled out the end of an era; the Pig would not fly again and neither would Ronan Lynch.

The landing was one of their worst. They came in too hard, landing with a jarring thump. When Ronan didn’t offer any kind of derisive remark, Adam turned to check on him; his chest still rose and fell, faintly, but his eyes were closed.

“I think we’ve made it in time for him,” Gansey said, twisting in his seat, “Just.” He shook Ronan’s shoulder. “Come on, Ronan. We’re home.”

Ronan groaned but he didn’t move and he didn’t open his eyes. While Noah opened the hatch, Adam and Gansey manoeuvred Ronan so he was standing on his uninjured leg, most of his weight leaning on Adam’s shoulder. Outside the Pig, Declan was already waiting. Adam didn’t even question how he’d managed to get to them so quickly; he let Declan take Ronan from him and that was what made Ronan open his eyes again.

“Don’t say a fucking word,” he said, slurring. “I don’t need your shit today.”

It seemed Declan wasn’t in the mood either. Keeping one arm locked around Ronan, he beckoned to a waiting medical crew. Leaving Ronan in their care, Adam wandered around to the front of the Pig to see what the damage was. The bomber’s compartment was almost completely shattered; it was a wonder that Ronan had been able to crawl out of it at all. Bullet holes dotted the sides and a couple had gone through the tail fin entirely. One of the motors had taken a hit, though it hadn’t been enough to put it completely out of commission.

“They won’t bother repairing it,” Gansey said, coming up to Adam’s side. His tone was mournful. “Maybe if all it needed were some patches but not when it looks like that.”

“Better the plane than us,” Noah chipped in, “Or, well, Ronan.” He tapped his cheek, looking at Adam. “You got some on you.”

Adam pulled off his glove and rubbed his face; his hand came away dusted with dark red flakes. Quickly, he brushed it off against his trousers. He wanted nothing more than to wash the night off of him and sleep until it was nothing but a bad memory, to lock it away with everything else and label it _Dangerous: do not open, do not touch._

 

* * *

 

It was another week before Adam was able to see Ronan again.

Going in to the hospital, he hadn’t known what to expect; this was his first time even setting foot in a hospital, as most of his medical care through his civilian life had been taken care of by his mother and the occasional visit from a doctor when the collective wisdom of their neighbours had failed. Those visits had always resulted in a narrow wage being cut even narrower, which fed into his mother’s sullen resentment, his father’s temper ready to burst. Walking the corridors, pointed on his way by a stern-faced nurse who looked as if she’d never smiled in her life, Adam was half-glad that he’d never needed such a place.

The ward Ronan was in was surprisingly empty. Only three beds were occupied, all of them circled by white curtains. Ronan’s was immediately obvious because of the hushed voices from behind the curtain, already bickering; Declan, it seemed, had got there first.

“…I can’t do anything more for you, Ronan,” Declan was saying. “Believe me when I say I’ve tried.”

“Don’t give me that shit. I know this situation suits.”

“You’re acting like a child!”

It was at that point that Adam decided to interrupt, pushing the curtain aside. Both brothers turned to him. Declan frowned, barely noticeable pinch in his brow, but Ronan grinned.

“Parrish,” he said, “you look like shit.”

“Sorry I interrupted,” Adam said, though he wasn’t. He looked Ronan up and down, “I think you might look worse than I do.”

“I’ll bet.” Ronan looked to Declan and he immediately looked as if he was about to embark on something painful. “Thanks for coming to tell me yourself.”

Declan and Adam shared a look, shared disbelief because Ronan didn’t thank _anyone,_ let alone his brother. Declan was the first to recover. He’d long since learnt how to recover from Ronan’s punches.

“Someone had to,” he said. He paused for a moment before he left. “Don’t bite Ashley’s head off again.”

“He only says that because he’s dating her,” Ronan said, as his brother’s footsteps faded away, “Well, _dating.”_ He made a slightly obscene hand gesture. “I doubt she’s the first.”

Adam felt his cheeks colour. “I didn’t come for that, Ronan.”

“I know.” Ronan rubbed the back of his neck. He looked more vulnerable than Adam had ever seen him. “Look.”

He threw his sheets aside and Adam felt his heart sink down somewhere near his stomach. They’d taken Ronan’s leg; everything below his knee had been amputated. Adam forced himself to look away, intent on not staring; instead, he looked at Ronan’s face, already dark and stormy.

“It’s why Declan was here,” he said. “I’m being sent home.”

“You’re being discharged?” Adam sat on the edge of the bed, “Why?”

Ronan shrugged. “Declan probably said. I stopped really listening when he said I won’t be going back out there.”

“Well, we’re all going away anyway,” Adam said. “For training on the heavy bombers.” Ronan let out a slow hiss of breath. “The Pig’s too damaged and they’re scrapping the Hampden anyway.”

Saying it aloud made it feel even more like the end of an era. The Pig was gone; Ronan soon would be. What was left of Gansey’s crew would be stitched against the remains of another, two fractured pieces brought together and the cracks filled in. With a jolt, Adam realised that he’d _miss_ Ronan; abrasive, dangerous Ronan who was supposed to burn and never be brought down so low.

“It might not be so bad,” he said, and he wasn’t sure if it was to console himself or Ronan. He found himself staring at his boots. “At least you’ll be out of trouble.”

“I don’t need both legs to use a radio,” Ronan spat, “so why don’t we swap? You go home, I stay here.”

Adam swallowed, “I can’t go home.” He fidgeted with his sleeve, noticed a loose thread that he quickly tucked out of sight. “I’m from Coventry.”

He glanced at Ronan to see something like regret crossing the other man’s face. Quickly, Ronan drew an envelope from under his pillow, ran his thumb along the edge of the letter inside.

“You could come to the Barns,” he said, “on your next leave. Declan doesn’t go home anymore. My mother probably already likes you.”

“You’ve mentioned me to your mother?”

“Of course. What else am I supposed to write to her about?” he paused. “That, and she likes everyone.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “You make this offer to everyone?”

Ronan snorted. “No, Parrish. Just you.” He pressed the letter into Adam’s hand. “So you remember the offer stands.”

The door at the end of the ward opened and the sound of shoes against the floor echoed off of the walls. Sensing impending banishment, Adam stood, letter in hand.

“I’ll be seeing you,” he said, half a promise to himself as much as to Ronan.

“Yeah?” Ronan didn’t afford the approaching nurse a second of his attention. “I hope so.”


	5. 1943

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vi-art did some sweet art pieces for this chapter! you can find them on [tumblr](https://vi-art.tumblr.com/post/184413857906/my-pieces-for-the-ravencyclebigbang-the-fic-is)

Long before even reaching the Barns, it was already apparent to Adam just how different his and Ronan’s worlds had always been. If Adam’s childhood playground had been the street he’d grown up in, cluttered and edged in by row on row of red terraced houses, Ronan’s had been seemingly endless green fields and wood copses, blue sky framed by tangled blackberry hedges and an invisible wall that the world outside could never breach. He fidgeted with his hands as the bus wound along the road, watching pristine country pass by the window and wondering how such a place could have made the likes of Ronan Lynch; a place untouched by war growing a son seemingly built precisely to withstand it.

Eventually, the bus stopped at the end of a thin, twisting driveway with a neatly painted gate sign reading The Barns. Adam hesitated, wondering if it was truly a good idea to impose himself on the Lynches’ hospitality based solely on Ronan’s whim. It felt almost shameful to call it service leave, to call it a visit; it felt more like he was running away.

‘ _It’s not running,’_ he thought as he started up the driveway. His fingers closed around the letter from Aurora Lynch in his pocket, picturing that lovely handwriting crumpling, morphing into something resembling Ronan’s scrawl, ‘ _There’s nothing for me to go back to.’_

He was spotted on his approach to the farmhouse. A tall, broad man, someone who resembled Declan far more than he resembled Ronan, clocked him as he approached the yard.

“You must be Mr Parrish,” he said, fixing Adam with a scrutinising look that was unmistakeably Ronan, “Or is it sergeant?”

“Adam,” Adam said, then felt foolish, “Mr Parrish is fine.”

Niall Lynch smiled, slow easy expression that was all his own, “Ronan’s in the barn. We have an orphan calf.”

It was a clear invitation. Adam hitched his pack higher on his shoulder and made his way across the yard, cautiously peering around the barn door. It was quiet in the barn, the same sacred silence as a church, broken only by gentle murmurs and the soft snuffle of breath. Adam took care to keep his footsteps quiet as he approached the end stall, unwilling to break that quiet.

Ronan sat, sprawling, in a pile of sun-warm straw; the calf lay with its head in his lap, nose twitching against the air, dozing contentedly as Ronan combed lines through the soft fur. He only looked up when the stall door creaked.

“About time, Parrish,” he said, “What have I missed? Wait.” He moved to shift the calf off his lap but Adam shook his head.

“It’s fine,” he said, “She looks comfortable.”

Shame twinged in his belly. The calf lying where she was hid the fact that Ronan was missing part of his leg, his crutch hidden somewhere in the straw. Adam crouched down and ran two fingers down the calf’s front leg, feeling out the shape of the bone.

“Didn’t think you’d be a nursemaid,” he said and Ronan snorted.

“Matthew usually does the baby work,” he said, “But he’s gone and I can’t exactly do much else.” He cast a dark look at the end of the crutch that poked out from under the straw, “It’s really fucked me, Parrish.”

Adam’s hand stilled, “You think?”

“I _know.”_

Ronan ran a hand over his scalp, hair still cropped close as possible, before he pushed the calf off his lap, folding her front legs neatly and settling her head against the straw. He propped his crutches up so he could pull himself up from the straw. Adam quickly straightened up and held out a hand, without even thinking. It was only when he saw the look on Ronan’s face, as if he couldn’t decide whether he was offended, and realised how much it looked like a pity move.

He almost pulled back, but then Ronan’s hand closed around his, warm and solid, a touch Adam didn’t want to let go of.

“My mother will want to meet you,” Ronan said, catching his balance as Adam pulled him. He was getting better with the crutches, now able to move them as easily as if he’d been born with them, “And get that look off your face; you’re not here to feel shitty and guilty about what happened.” He looked down at where his missing leg should have been, “You can’t fix everything, Parrish.”

 

* * *

 

Aurora Lynch was the opposite of everything Adam’s mother had been. Where his mother had been a faded, dusty thing, Aurora was all sunlight, beaming and dreamy despite everything that was going on outside of this little world she’d built. There was such a stark contrast between her and her two sons, sharp line between her and Declan’s perfect practicality, between her gentleness and Ronan’s abrasion. Adam felt like she could fill a space that he’d never even known was empty.

 “I’m glad to have him home,” she said softly, watching Ronan through the farmhouse’s kitchen window, “I wish it were under better circumstances but at least he’s here.” She looked down into the sink, “He said Declan was there when it happened.”

Adam quickly swallowed the tea she’d given him, too hot in his throat, “I don’t think he blames his brother.”

“I wish they didn’t fight so much,” Aurora said, “They never used to.” She hummed, “Maybe Ronan doesn’t want me to tell his friends that.” She turned to look at Adam over her shoulder, “When are you going back?”

“Another week.”

“Can I ask a favour from you?” Adam nodded and Aurora smiled, “Check on Declan for me. I haven’t heard from him in a while. Sometimes, he doesn’t look after himself like he should.”

“He doesn’t write to you?”

“I know he’s busy. It doesn’t mean I’ll let him forget himself.” The door banged open and Adam flinched. Aurora narrowed her eyes, “Niall, _please.”_

Niall stood in the doorway, framed by sunlight, and there was a bewildered look on his face, as if he’d just been confronted by the impossible. He looked at Aurora as if Adam wasn’t there and extended one hand, holding a crumpled telegram out to her. She took it slowly and Adam could feel tension growing, a fragile peace about to be shattered as Aurora unfolded the telegram. Adam could only watch as she read, as her breezy expression slipped and cracked, revealing beneath a very similar disbelief to Niall’s.

“No, Niall,” she said, looking up. Her voice was very small and cracked, “No. He’s not. Not my Declan.”

Her hands were shaking. Adam slid away from the table as Niall moved to embrace her; this was no place for him, not for him to sit in on. Aurora’s wail rang in his ears even in the yard, long and raw and aching. He wondered what Gansey, who could tease information out of a stone, or Noah, the ears that people said walls had, would know. Ronan cut a lonely figure, sat hunched on the wall. He was watching the road, as the small figure with the unfortunate job of delivering telegrams that made mothers wail disappeared. Adam approached him cautiously, wary of his teeth and claws. He said nothing as Adam clambered the wall to sit next to him, close enough that they almost touched.

 

* * *

 

“Gears, Parrish. No, change them. Change!”

The car came to a juddering halt as Adam was too slow to catch the gear change, jolting them both forward as he quickly turned the wheel to a grass verge. Ronan let loose a whole pastiche of swear words that Adam had never heard before, some of which he was fairly sure Ronan had made up on the spot. He sat, leaning on the steering wheel, waiting for Ronan to finish.

“How did you work with cars,” Ronan says, “and not know how to drive one?”

“I never needed to learn.”

There was a moment of quiet and then Ronan said, “You’re going to need to crank the engine again.” He rubbed at his eyes, shadowed with tiredness, with his knuckles.

“You’re not sleeping.”

“Top notch observation, Parrish. Declan’s given me a fucking ulcer.”

It was the first time that Ronan had mentioned his brother since the telegram had arrived; there’d been some nebulous mentions of Matthew, but Declan’s name had remained a black word, unspoken by both Niall and Ronan. Speaking it would make the absence of him real.

Adam coughed, “That’s not how ulcers work.”

“It’s how this one is working!” Ronan exhaled, a rasping sound, before he said, “He was meant to be the smart one. The stick in the mud responsible one.” He shook his head, as if he could shake his brother out of it, “Not what we’re here for. The engine needs cranking.” His hand was warm on Adam’s shoulder.

“Watch my gears.”

Eventually, they stopped by a crumbling stone building, one wall caved and the roof patchy. Ivy climbed the remaining walls and clawed across the roof; the sunlight came through in shafts, pouring gold over them. The war felt far away; Ronan’s cracked family felt even further.

“This was where I used to bring Matthew when our father got sick of him being underfoot,” Ronan said, “Which was a lot. I used to carry him out on my back.”

There was a wistfulness to his voice that made it easy to picture the pair of them, two wild-footed children turning ruins into dream castles. A pang of envy rose up in Adam’s belly to butt its head against his heart before plunging down to settle somewhere near his liver. It was the kind of refuge his younger self needed.

“Did it used to have walls before you got too close?” he asked.

“Yeah. Shitty ones. I knocked them down by sheer force of bull headedness.”

He stepped out of the car, balancing for a moment to retrieve his crutches, and it was left to Adam to catch up. Adam picked his way around the scattered stones and the roots pushing up through the earth but Ronan navigated them easily, a lifetime of practice aiding him. He stood in a patch of sunlight, edges lined in gold, only piece of solid reality in this dreamlike pause of the world around them.

It was there that Ronan kissed him.

The crutches fell with a clatter and Ronan anchored himself on Adam, one hand clutching his waist, the other tangling in his hair. The world narrowed down to the two of them, to Ronan’s quiet hands, to Ronan’s mouth on Adam’s, the heat of him, as true and encompassing as sunlight.

‘ _The world is a dream,’_ Adam thought, desperately wanting one kind thing for himself, to trap this one moment in amber and carry it as a good luck charm, ‘ _We are the reality.’_


	6. 1944

Adam had once thought, perhaps unfairly, that Joseph Kavinsky would never be good for anything. He was bad for many things: Adam’s nerves; Gansey’s temperament; his own reputation. It was only after they’d started working together, flying together most nights, that he discovered that Kavinsky was excellent for reminding them just how good they’d had it with Ronan. While both of them were a similar strain of abrasive, Ronan had at least had an off switch. Kavinsky had no such thing. Adam wondered sometimes if there was something Kavinsky was trying to prove. Adam had tried to brush it away as his own resentment, but it had soon become clear that Kavinsky was deliberately needling. It was only a small relief that the main target of his efforts was Gansey.

“It can’t be for much longer,” Gansey said and it didn’t escape Adam’s notice how he’d been favouring whisky that evening. “With the Americans and the Russians—”

Kavinsky’s hands landed on Gansey’s shoulders. “You don’t need Russians, Dick. You have _me.”_

Adam frowned. “Aren’t you barred?”

“Nah, that was Prokopenko.” Kavinsky dropped into the chair next to Gansey, occupying Ronan’s rightful place. He swiped Gansey’s whisky from under his nose.

“What do you mean, when you say we don’t need the Russians?” Gansey didn’t even bother objecting to his drink being snatched. “They seem to be doing a good job of things.”

“You don’t need them because you have me. And Prokopenko.” Kavinsky drained the whisky and gestured at Noah. “And Czerny.”

Noah folded his arms. “I was born here.”

“The name stands.” Kavinsky tapped his nails against the tabletop. “And how is Lynch? He never answers my letters.” He grinned. “Ronan, I mean. We all know how the other one is.”

With his hand, he mimed a plane crashing and bursting into flames. Gansey’s smile was tight.

“Some respect please,” he said, and then he frowned. “How much have you been drinking?”

“Enough.”

“Ronan’s fine,” Adam said, knowing Kavinsky would only press again. “He’s at home.”

Kavinsky pulled a face. “He got domestic too quick.”

Before Adam could say anything, someone whistled across the pub to get Kavinsky’s attention. He looked up to see Skov, the gunner Kavinsky had brought to their combined crew, waving by the door. Kavinsky stood, giving no care to how his chair scraped against the wooden floor.

“Been a pleasure, ladies,” he said, tipping his head in a mockery of courtesy, “but I’m off to have some real fun.”

“I don’t think I want to know what he thinks is _real fun,_ ” Noah said, “and I don’t know what he gets out of acting like that.”

“Attention,” Gansey said. He shook his empty glass. “I’m going to make him pay me back for this.” He caught Adam’s expression. “Just grin and bear it. As soon as this is all over, we can go our separate way from him.”

Adam appreciated the optimism. “I didn’t think I’d ever say it, but I think Ronan might be the lucky one.”

Noah’s eyes widened a moment before a hand tapped Adam on his shoulder. He twisted to see a woman stood behind him; it took him a moment to recognise her as a nurse, and another moment still to remember that she’d been the most permanent fixture at Declan’s side.

“Can I help you?” he asked, trying to hide that he was searching his memory banks for her name. He was sure Ronan had mentioned it…

“I know Ronan Lynch was part of your crew,” she said. “I’m going to see his family, to return some of Declan’s things. If you have any letters, I can take them.”

Adam thought about the letter he had stuffed into one of his spare boots, along with a telephone number Ronan had scribbled out for him, waiting to be sent. After a quick look at Noah and Gansey, he stood, knowing that Kavinsky would have noticed her as well and recognised her; there seemed to be no end to who he knew connected to Ronan, no matter how small and inconsequential that would be.

“I think I might be the only one,” he said, offering her his arm. He nodded to the other two. “I’ll see you later.”

Noah raised his glass before downing it and Gansey waved him off, gathering their empty glasses together. Watching the other side of the room, Kavinsky still seemed occupied; it seemed like they’d be able to make a clean escape.

Walking out the door, too many moments too late, Adam remembered that her name was Ashley.

 

* * *

 

“There. Try that.”

Leaning heavily on the kitchen table and the back of his chair, Ronan stood. Very slowly, he eased his weight on to the prosthetic that his father had made. Niall stayed close, ready to prop him back up or catch him if he fell again.

“How does it feel?” he asked as Ronan took some experimental steps.

“Like a piece of wood strapped to my leg?” Ronan said. He stood still and shifted his weight from one side to the other, “It’s better than the last time.” He tugged at the strap holding it in place. “Where did you get this leather from?”

“Here and there.” Niall leant back against the kitchen worktop and lit up a cigarette. “Just remember it’s only something to get you about until you get something proper. Might let you have some company other than me and your mother.”

“There’s no one else here I’d talk to.” Ronan groaned. “Now I sound like a fucking tragedy.”

“I’ve heard worse.”

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Niall indicated that Ronan should answer it and he made his way slowly along the hallway to the front door, hobbling as he got used to the weight of the prosthetic. He could only hope that it wasn’t another telegram; not someone bearing the bad news that Matthew was killed or missing, blown into oblivion just like his brother…

The first thing he saw when he opened the door was blonde hair, a touch too bright to be the natural colour, and then a scarlet coat. Stupidly, his first thought was that it was nothing like something Aurora would own, as if his mother would feel the need to knock on her own front door. Those perfect eyebrows pinched.

“Sergeant Lynch,” she said. “Long time, no see.”

Not long enough, he almost said. He bit his tongue, because he could already hear Niall approaching, his curiosity getting the better of him. He loomed at Ronan’s shoulder, always larger than life; Ronan could only imagine how the pair of them looked to Ashley.

“This is Ashley,” Ronan said. “Declan’s girlfriend.”

Niall smiled, as slow as honey, and in that jarring moment, he wasn’t Ronan’s mirror but Declan’s, with all the same solid surety. It was obvious that Ashley saw it too; she was so unguarded with her expressions, with how her eyes widened, how the shape of her mouth rounded out.

“I recognise the name,” Niall said, and his intrusion meant Ronan could retreat back into the house. “Though I’ll admit, I thought you were a boy.”

“I get that a lot,” Ashley said, stepping through the door. Niall took her coat and hat and neither of them noticed Ronan frozen on the stairs, baffled by what kind of letters Declan had been sending to make Niall think Ashley was a _man._

He let them pass by without comment and listened as Niall showed her to the living room, and returned to the kitchen to set the kettle to boil. When he heard the kitchen door close and his father’s low murmur, presumably talking to his mother, Ronan made his way to the living room.

He found Ashley examining the photographs that Aurora kept neatly arranged on the mantelpiece. Her attention was focussed in particular on one of Declan from the first time he’d come home on leave, the only photograph Aurora had of him as an adult.

“Why did you come here?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe. “I don’t know what you’re looking for.” His lip curled. “It’s not like you _married_ him.”

“He wasn’t the marrying type,” Ashley said. “I don’t know if you noticed. He was different. He took no for an answer. I liked him; that was enough for me.” She opened her bag and withdrew a letter. “This is for you.”

Taking the envelope, Ronan immediately recognised Adam’s handwriting. He rubbed his thumb over the empty space where a stamp should have been.

“Postal service finally given up?”

“I offered to bring it.” Ashley pursed her mouth. “Saying thank you is easier, you know.”

“I…thanks,” Ronan said. It had been too long since he’d had any real word from Adam.

It was the closest they’d ever come to getting along. Something in Ronan’s marrow told him this was the best they were going to get; this visit was Ashley’s way of closing a chapter of her life and moving on. If they met again, it would only be revisiting a story they’d both read before.

Aurora entering the room provided a good moment for Ronan to leave, bow out and take himself upstairs. He locked the door to the room he’d used to share with Matthew, his brother’s side kept immaculate only by Aurora’s attention. He unbuckled the straps holding the makeshift prosthetic in place so that he could lean against the wall, mattress squeaking as he moved.

Adam’s letters were never the multipage epics people spoke about in stories. He made no epic proclamations or grand gestures; he was not a man who wasted his page space. He barely provided any real information, only small stories of what had happened to him on the ground and vague mention of where the skies took him. But it was all enough. Every sentence, every tidy square letter, was Ronan’s to keep, binding him to the people he’d had to leave behind.

But despite all of Adam’s carefully curated practicality, he’d developed a habit of signing all his letters off the same way.

_I’ll be seeing you._

 

* * *

 

When the Lancaster, named Glendower by Gansey and “ _It’s just a fucking plane, Dick”_ by Kavinsky, was hit, Adam felt his heart and a good part of his digestive system leap up into his throat. Kavinsky whooped from his place at Gansey’s side as the plane sagged, the engine on the right side taken out.

“Pull us a miracle, Dick!” he hollered and even Skov had the sense to look a little unnerved.

“I don’t do miracles, Kavinsky,” Gansey said. “I just--”

He was drowned out by the Lancaster’s own guns, firing at an enemy in the dark. The plane groaned as the engine finally cut out completely, the cabin filling with the smell of smoke.

“No miracles,” Gansey said. “We get out.”

It was Skov who was the first to move, following a gesture from Kavinsky. He left his post to work on opening the panel above the cockpit. Kavinsky shrugged in response to Gansey’s questioning look.

“No point in a navigator if the only place we’re going is down,” he said. “Besides, I don’t want your whinging in my ear in the afterlife.” Skov managed to get the panel open and clambered out. “You next, Parrish.”

Adam hesitated, reluctant to leave Gansey behind, even more reluctant to stay behind and burn. Through the panel, he could see billows of smoke blotting out the stars. The Lancaster dropped further and Kavinsky shoved him.

“Go on,” Gansey said. “We’ll follow.”

Adam climbed out through the panel and immediately choked on the smoke, sputtering as he leapt free of the plane, pulled to release his parachute. The silk caught the air and pulled him short from his fall, still coughing as the smoke turned to freezing night air. The Lancaster seemed to fall in slow motion and Adam watched as another spot of white silk appeared against that smoke, that glowing hot flame that was crawling over the rest of the plane. He waited for two more to appear.

They never came.

When he fell to earth, he landed too hard and something cracked in his ankle. He cried out from the pain and then quickly bit down on his gloved fingers to muffle the sound; he didn’t know exactly where he was, only that he was in Germany, likely near Nuremberg. Already, he could hear voices approaching, loud and rapid German, and he moved to retrieve the knife in his boot to cut himself free of the parachute. As soon as he was free, he stood and his eyes watered from the pain, his injured leg shaking beneath him as he hobbled away. He didn’t manage to get far before the Germans found him.

He dropped his knife to the ground when they surrounded him, guns drawn. They were all older than him, some of them considerably so, and there was a voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like Ronan, that told him to at least try and fight his way out. But there was the pain in his ankle to consider and Adam’s first instinct was always to survive.

“Sergeant Adam Parrish,” he said, raising his hands over his head. “Wireless operator.”

The blow came before he could give his squad number. The butt of a gun collided with the left side of his head, against his ear, hard enough to send him down the ground. Pain radiated across his head and his ears were ringing, worse in the left. In a heartbeat, he was back in the house in Coventry. He thought he could hear his father’s voice, muffled as if through water, and he raised his arms to try and shelter himself. A hand gripped his wrist and someone shouted at him in a language he didn’t understand, snapping him back to the present.

“I can’t…” _hear you._ Adam forced himself to his feet again. He wouldn’t let his past bring him down here. “I’ll go.”

The only thing that was certain to them was his surrender. One of them shouted an order in German and the jab in his back made it clear he was expected to march. He gritted his teeth and walked, steeling himself against his ankle’s protests.  

The march took him back to civilisation. There was rubble on the streets here too, a fire burning somewhere in the distance. A handful of women had emerged and one of them, faded and lined, spat into Adam’s face as he passed. He angled his head to wipe his cheek against his shoulder and set his mouth in a firm line. He had endured worst; his pride had lasted him his whole life.

The soldiers escorted Adam into a police station, somehow still entirely intact. They pause only to scribble a record of him as one of them peeled away, presumably to telephone someone in a higher position to come and collect their shiny new airman. Two of them led him into a cell, already occupied, and locked the door behind him.

“Adam?”

Adam recognised the voice immediately and Noah uncurled himself from the corner. He looked smudgy in the dark and there was a heavy bruise cutting across his cheek. Someone had stripped him of his thick woollen gear, including his boots, leaving him in only a shirt and trousers.  He reached out when Adam slumped down against the wall opposite, his injured leg stretched out.

“You’re hurt,” he said. Adam let out a long breath.

“Yeah. So are you. It’s not easy to walk away from something like that.” Adam paused. “Did anyone else get out?”

“I don’t know.” Noah moved closer, “They’ll move us, you know. Somewhere all barbed wire fences and watch posts.” He patted Adam on the shoulder. “We’ll survive, you and I.”


	7. 1945

If Adam’s letters had been slow before, that trickle slowed to a drip after he’d been captured. Some came with half the lines blacked out, as if Adam had written something and then immediately regretted it. Ronan didn’t have the heart to tell him that he’d found out about his capture through the radio, through a man with a voice so smug it made Ronan want to break several noses. He was sure Adam must have already known.

The letters came for a year, supplemented with notes from Noah; he never heard from Gansey. When they all stopped, Ronan didn’t know what to think; it was a bizarre, alien and uncomfortable feeling to even consider that he may have been the last of his kind, last survivor of Gansey’s air crew.

“Your brother’s a busy boy,” Niall said one morning, following another half-empty church service. One of Matthew’s novel-length letters was unfolded on the table in front of him. “These prison camps have put him in high demand.”

Ronan rubbed at his leg. “Medics always are.”

Niall’s mouth was a grim line. “More civilians than soldiers.”

“But it’s ended,” Aurora said, counting the pages in their ration book. “That’s all that matters.”

Ronan could see that six years had worn his mother down. The empty places where her sons should be had eaten away at her; having Ronan back had eased it but it wasn’t enough, not with Matthew still gone. Only time would tell how far she could really move past losing Declan.

“Heard anything from your friend?” Niall asked as he passed Matthew’s letter on to Aurora. “The one who came here?”

“No,” Ronan said, clipped. He didn’t want to talk about Adam Parrish. He stood up and gestured for the ration book. “Here, I’ll go.”

He took his jacket from where he’d hung it on the back of the kitchen door and made his way into the hall, still stepping too heavy on his right side, stopping to pick up the money set aside for the week from its place by the hallway telephone.

It started to ring as he was about to step through the door.

 

* * *

 

 Coventry felt alien to Adam now. He was used to the shattered remains of buildings, having seen and helped cause enough of them himself. The loss of his uniform meant that he avoided the brunt of any hero worship, though he could see the remains of the victory celebrations scattered around him, in the ribbons tangled in the fences and confetti piling in the gutters. None of it felt like a place he could even try and call home anymore, like the place he’d been born and grown in; it was the same feeling as trying to stay in a shirt that no longer, pulled too tight across his shoulders and chest, hampering every move.

‘ _I have outgrown you,’_ he thought as he walked the familiar streets. He wished it was something he could mourn. It felt like something he should.

When he came to his childhood street, he paused. He had been told that Robert Parrish returned to the site of his old house, picking it apart brick by brick as if there was something left there to salvage. Adam felt his unease grow and reminded himself that this was not a homecoming; this was a purging of ghosts.

He found his father sat upon the pile of brick that had once been the front facing wall. Robert Parrish considered him the same way he’d look at something filthy.

“Never expected you to come crawling back,” he said. “What are you here for?” He gestured to the rubble. “I don’t have a roof for you anymore, boy.”

For a moment, Adam couldn’t find the right words. They all seemed to stick in his dry mouth. He felt like lashing out at the world for being afraid of this place; he felt like he could be better than that. Lashing out was what his father did.

“What do you think I came for?” he said eventually.

“Guilt, maybe. Some last obligation to your mother.” His father’s mouth twisted in distaste. “If you were a decent man, I would have heard about her dying from you.”

‘ _If you were a decent man,_ ’ Adam thought, ‘ _you would have tried to find me.’_

But he had long known his father wasn’t a decent man.

“I can’t hear out of one ear,” he said. “It was the Germans who did it. I still don’t know exactly why; maybe I was just talking when they didn’t want me to. But when it happened, all I could think about was you. That it was something that I’d survived before.” Adam could see that his father’s gaze, though towards him, was pointedly avoiding his face. “I thought that maybe they just finished something you started.”

“Ah. So you came to dredge up the past.”

“I came to see if anything had changed.” _I came to put the past to bed._ “I can see now it hasn’t.”

“Is that all?” His father’s voice was flat.

“Yes,” Adam said, and he meant it. He didn’t want to come back here again; he didn’t need to. He swapped his small suitcase to his other hand. “I should have written to you about Mum.”

His father said nothing; instead, he stood and turned away from Adam first. There was no goodbye and it was the first discussion Adam had had with his father that hadn’t left a bitter taste in his mouth. He left the old, ruined street for the last time.

He wedged himself into the first phone box he found, standing with his suitcase between his feet and the May sun beaming into his eyes. Squinting, he counted his coins and read out the number to the operator, waited to be connected to the last place he’d felt safe.

“Lynch?” he said, as the voice on the other end crackled down the line. “Ronan?”

There was a long pause and, for a moment, Adam worried that he’d been connected to the wrong place. Then he heard a long, harsh exhale.

“Parrish,” Ronan said, and he sounded choked. “You absolute shitbag.”

 

* * *

 

When Adam came to the Barns again, Ronan was immediately reminded of what he’d said the day Adam had come to see him in hospital: _you look like shit._ The description was far more apt now. The shadows under his eyes had deepened and there was a sway to his step that hadn’t been there before. He twitched when Ronan approached him on the wrong side.

“What happened to you?” Ronan asked, when his parents had gone to bed and it was only him and Adam in the living room. Adam was stretched out like a cat on the sofa, the light from the lamp casting him in amber.

“I was a prisoner of war, Ronan.” Adam rubbed at his side. “My best luck was to be with Noah. We had a weekly tally for how many ribs started showing.” He frowned. “I hope he made it home in one piece.”

“What about Gansey?”

Adam’s silence spoke volumes. Ronan abandoned his place in the armchair to sit on the floor beside him, brushing one hand through his hair.

“You survived,” he said. He felt like he could glow with pride.

“You can call it that.”

This time, it was Adam who kissed Ronan, his fingers cautious on the back of Ronan’s neck. It felt like both a beginning and an end, sealed in the quiet and secret safety of the Barns. Ronan never wanted Adam to leave his side again; he knew that Adam inevitably would, because the world was his to touch and to see. Ronan’s world was at the Barns, trying to pick up where he went off, to find the threads of an old life and see where they now led. He knew that, no matter where Adam went, he’d come back.

They would always meet again.


End file.
